Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 16.djvu/24

 BASILICA

entered this community. He founded the first Polish CathoUc paper, the "Gazeta Katolicka", his per- sonal organ for many years, and established the first PoUsh daily Catholic paper in America, the "Dzien- nik Cbicagoski", which for nearly twenty-five years has been a vaUant defender of the Faith against the inroads of the Uberal press, particularly the "Zgoda", the insincerely "neutral" organ of the PoUsh Na- tional Alliance. To him are due the first PoUsh American te.\t-books, and first Sunday-school papers. He saw the necessity of organizing the Poles along strictly CathoUc Unes, and founded the PoUsh Roman Catholic Union. His greatest enemies admit him to be the most commanding figui-e in the brief but dramatic history of the American Poles. Despite constant criticism from both clergy and laity, he re- mained indefatigable. He was a man of genuine piety and deep faith, strict with himself alone, con- siderate of others. He was humble, resourceful, dar- ing, and patriotic and was possessed of real genius for organization. The noblest monument he has left is the faith that abides in three million Poles.

Felix Thomas Sbrocztnski.

Basilica, as a term used by canon lawyers and Uturgists, is a title assigned by formal concession or immemorial custom to certain more important churches, in virtue of which they enjoy privileges of an honorific character which are not always very clearly defined. Basilicas in this sense are divided into two classes, the greater or patriarchial, and the lesser, basiUcas. To the former class belong primarily those four great churches of Rome (St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul-without the-waUs), which among other distinctions have a special "holy door" and to which a visit is always prescribed as one of the conditions for gaining the Roman Jubilee (q.v.). They are also called patriarchial basiUcas, seemingly as representative of the great ecclesiastical provinces of the world thus sj-mboUcally united in the heart of Clu-istendom. St. John Lateran is the cathedral of the pope, the Patriarch of the West. St. Peter's is assigned to the Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Paul's to the Patriarch of Alex- andria, St. Mary Major to the Patriarch of Antioch. St. La wrence-outside-the- Walls is also reckoned as a greater basilica because it is speciaUy attributed to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Moreover, a few other churches, notably that of St. Francis at Assisi and that of the Portiuncula (q. v.), have al.so received the pri\'ilege of ranking as patriarchial basilicas. As such they possess a papal throne and an altar at which none may say Mass except by the pope's per- mission. The lesser basilicas are much more numer- ous, including nine or ten different churches in Rome, and a number of others, such as the Basilica of the Grotto at Lourdes, the votive Church of the Sacred Heart at Montmartre, the Church of Marienthal in Alsace, etc. There has been a pronounced tendency of late years to add to their number. Thus the " Act a ApostoUcffi Sedis" for 1909 contain six, and the "Acta" for 1911 eight, such concessions. In the Brief of erection the pope declares: "We, by our apostoUc authority, . . . erect (such and such a church) to the dignity of a lesser basiUea and bestow upon it all the privileges which belong to the lesser basilicas of this our o\\7i cherished city". These "privileges", besides conferring a certain precedence before other churches (not, however, before the cathe- dral of any locaUty), include the right of the cono- pmum, the bell, and tin- cajypa magna. The cono- panim is a sort of unibiclla (also called papilin, sinicchio, etc.), which together with the bell is carried processionally at the head of the clergy on state oc- casions. The rappa itiai/iia is worn by the canons or members of the cdllegiale chapter, if seculars, when assisting at Office. The form of the conopttitm,

8 BAUMGARTNER

which is of red and yellow silk, is well shown in the arms of the cardinal camerlengo (see vol. VII, p. 242, coloured plate) over the cross keys.

Heuser in Kirchenlexikon, II, 22; Ferrahis in Bibliotheca canomca (Rome, 1896). s. v.; IVIontault, L'armfe liturniaue d Rome (Paris, 1857).

Herbert Thurston.

Baumgartner, Alexander, poet and writer on the history of literature, b. at St. GaU, Switzerland, 27 June, 1841; d. at Luxemburg, 5 Sept., 1910. His father was GaUus Jakob Baumgartner, a prominent statesman. At the abbey school of Maria Einsiedeln in Switzerland, where Alexander when fourteen years old began his higher studies, a decisive influ- ence was exercised over the impres- sionable spirit of the pupil by the well-known poet and scholar, Father Gall Mo- rel. The intel- lectual bent there fii'st developed was confirmed at the Jesuit school at Feldkirch, where the boy spent his last two gymnasial years.

Alexander Baumgahtkeb

After passing an excellent examination he entered the Society of Jesus in 1860. After his studies in 1874 he was assigned to the editorial staff of the periodical "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", which had been founded three years before. For thirty-six years he devoted his pen to this journal as a loyal collaborator, so that scarcely a number appeared without some article from him. Owing to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Germany, he repeatedly changed the place of pubhcation of the periodical. He also took two long journeys. In 1883 he went to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scandinavia, and the provinces of the Baltic as far as St. Petersburg. Three years later he visited Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Both tours are commemorated in the weU-knowTi books of travel, "Nordische Fahrten" (1889 and 1890). Other and shorter vacation trips had more for their object the physical and intellectual relaxation of the over- strained powers which, however, gave way at too early an age. He was buried in the cemetery at Luxemburg near his old friend and countrjTnan, Father Joseph Spillman, S.J.

Father Baumgartner was bom with a poetic nature. His talent was best evidenced in his poems for special occasions. His best work of this kind is his "Fest- spiel zur Calderonfeier" (1881), which appeared first in the "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", but was soon, owing to repeated requests, published in book form with a brief biography of the Spanish poet. A trans- lation into Spanish by Orti y Lara of the artistic work soon followed. His "Lauretanische Litanei" in fifty-nine sonnets was also written for a special occa- sion and was printed for the first time in 18S3 and translated into Dutch in 1S9. His talent for poetry was shown no less brilliantly in his fine translations of foreign poetry. In 1884 appeared, as a small book, the translation of an Icelandic poem of the four- teenth century to the Virgin, "Die Lilie".

Baunigartner's fame rests on his writings on the history of literature. His nvnnerous articles in the "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", which were collected